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standing and use of Accounts, an Art so useful for all sorts, sexes and degrees of persons; especially for such as ever think to have to do in the world in any sort of Trade or Commerce, that next to a stock of Money, Wares and Credit, this is the most necessary thing. Nor let us be discouraged, or put by the inspection thereof, by being bid meddle with our Distaff; for I have heard it affirmed by those who have lived in Foreign parts, that merchants and other Tradesmen have no other Book-keepers than their wives; who by this means their husbands dying-are well acquainted with the nature and manner of the Trade, and so certain how and where their stock is that they need not be beholden to Servants or Friends for guidance.

And for telling us that the Government of the House appertains to us, and the Trade to our Father or Husband-under favor-the one is to be minded, and the other not neglected; for there is not that danger to a Family's overthrow by the Sause wanting its right relish, or the Table or Stools misplaced, as by a Widow's ignorance of her concern as to her Estate and I hope Husbands will not oppose this when Help and Ease is intended to them whilst living, and safety to their Name and Posterity after death; except they have private Trades-too much in mode-whereof they could have their wives wholly ignorant. In such a case indeed, one that knows not that one and two makes three suits best.

And let us not fear that we shall want Time and Opportunity to manage the Decencies of our own House, for what is an hour in a day, or a half day in a week, to make an inspection into that that is to keep me and mine from Ruin and Poverty?

Methinks now the Objections may be that this Art is too high and mysterious for the Weaker Sex; it will make them proud; Women had better keep to their needle work, Point-lace, &c., and if they come to poverty, these small crafts may give them some mean Relief. To which I answer-That having in some measure practiced both needle-work and accounts, I can aver that I never found this masculine art harder or more difficult than the Effeminate achievements of Lace-making, Gum-work, or the like; the attainment whereof need not make us proud; and God forbid that the practice of an useful Virtue should prompt us to a contrary Vice.

Therefore if I might advise you, you should let the poor serve you with these mean things, whilst by gaining or saving an Estate you shall never be out of capacity to store yourselves more abundantly with those trifles than your own Industry in such matters could have ever blest ye.

Know then that my parents were very careful to cause me to learn Writing and Arithmetic, and in that I proceeded as far as Reduction, the Rule of Three and Practice, with other rules; for without the knowledge of these, I was told I should not be capable of Trade and Book-keeping; and in these I found no discouragement; for this Arithmetic set my brains at work, and yet there was much delight in seeing the end, and how each Question produced a fair Answer, and informed me of things I knew not.

Then follows her system of book-keeping.

IN the biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson, by G. W. Cooke, there is abundant evidence how much Emerson owed of his spiritual life to the influence of women. "His mother was a woman of great sensibility, modest, serene, and very devout. She was possessed of a thoroughly sincere nature, devoid of all sentimentalism, and of a temper the most even and placid. One of her sons said, that in his boyhood, when she came from her room in the morning, it seemed to him as if she always came from communion with God. She has been described as-

Possessed of great patience and fortitude, of the serenest trust in God, of a discerning spirit, and a most courteous bearing; one who knew how to guide the affairs of her own house, as long as she was responsible for that, with the sweetest authority, and knew how to give the least trouble and the greatest happiness after that authority was resigned. Both her mind and her character were of a superior order, and they set their stamp upon manners of peculiar softness and natural grace and quiet dignity. Her sensible and kindly speech was always as good as the best instruction; her smile, though it was ever ready, was a reward. Her dark liquid eyes, from which old age could not take away the expression, will be among the remembrances of all on whom they ever rested.

During the boyhood of her sons, Mrs. Emerson found a faithful help in her husband's sister, Miss Mary Moody Emerson. This aunt was also a woman of many remarkable qualities; high-toned in motive and conduct to the largest degree, very conscientious, and with an unconventional disregard of social forms. Waldo was greatly indebted to her. He once declared her influence upon his education to have been as great as that of Greece or Rome, and he described her as a great genius and a remarkable writer. She was well read in theology, and was a scholar of no mean abilities. In this pious and conscientious household, where the most careful economy had to be practised, Waldo Emerson grew up to the strictest regard for all that is good and true. The mother and the aunt exercised a rare influence over him and his brothers. They were carefully and conscientiously trained at home, especially in regard to every moral virtue. Honesty, probity, unselfishness-these virtues they had deeply instilled into them.

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THE

ENGLISH WOMAN'S REVIEW.

(NEW SERIES.)

No. CXIII.-SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1882.

ART. I.-THE MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACT, 1882.

OUR readers may remember that in the number of this REVIEW issued last December, we ventured a conditional prediction, which our friends at the time may perhaps have thought somewhat hazardous. We said then in our article on Legislation with regard to the Property of Married Women :-" We may reasonably expect the Session of 1882 to be distinguished by the placing upon the Statute-book, with the full concurrence of both Houses, a Married Women's Property Act, which shall be at once comprehensive, wise, and just." The event has amply fulfilled our expectations, and we have this month the pleasure of placing before our readers a verbatim copy of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882, which received the Royal assent on the 18th of August, and will come into operation throughout England and Ireland next New Year's Day. This measure, the history of which up to the close of the Session of 1881, we fully recorded in the article previously referred to, was, in the Session of 1882, introduced in the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor, and after being before their Lordships for nearly three months, and receiving consideration and valuable emendation at each successive stage, finally passed the House of Lords in the month of May, in a form which more than justified our state

woman's,

15th,

ment "that the Peers have shared in the general advance of opinion on this subject, and that the experience of the working of the Act of 1870, so far as it recognised the Property rights of married women, has dissipated their caution and timidity." It is a remarkable fact that during the progress of the Bill through the House of Lords, no opposition whatever was offered to its central and vital principle, and that the very few hostile amendments, which concerned only points of detail of a trivial character, were at once negatived without a division, the only amendments introduced being of a friendly character, and designed to give full practical effect to its essential principle.

The Bill on coming down from the Lords, was introduced in the House of Commons on behalf of the Government by the Right Hon. G. Osborne Morgan, M.P., and read a second time-without a division-on the 8th of June. The Bill would undoubtedly have become law during that month but for the opposition of the two gentlemen who had delayed its progress in the two previous Sessions.

It ought to be carefully remembered that this Bill, which was introduced immediately on the meeting of the new Parliament in 1880, by Mr. Hinde Palmer, Sir Gabriel Goldney, Mr. Jacob Bright, and Mr. Watkin Williams, was read a second time on the 16th of June of that year without a division, the only speech directed against the principle of the measure being that of Mr. Warton, who nevertheless, in the course of his speech, admitted that "It would be hopeless in the present feeling of the House to think of dividing against the Bill." After the second reading, however, Sir George Campbell, M.P. for the Kirkcaldy Burghs, at once put down notice of opposition, which, under the half-past twelve o'clock rule, and with the pressure of other business in that short Session, was fatal to its further progress that year.

In 1881 the Bill was introduced and again read a second time without a division on the 13th of January. It was then referred to a Select Committee, who reported the Bill to the House on the 13th of March. No sooner, however, had the Bill been reported, than Mr. Warton, M.P. for Bridport, put down notice of opposi

tion. This notice, under the unprecedented conditions of the Session, which effectually precluded the consideration of the measure at any time to which this "block" did not apply, defeated the Bill for the time as effectually as though a majority of the House had voted against it. Again and again it stood among the orders of the day, only to be again postponed, till, on the 15th of August, Mr. Hinde Palmer finally withdrew the Bill.

To these two gentlemen, therefore, so far as the House of Commons is concerned, is it entirely due that the women of England and Ireland have continued for the last two years to suffer from the unjust and oppressive character of the law with regard to the property of married women.

The same tactics of obstruction, would, no doubt, have succeeded for the third time had not the Government and the House been roused to the conviction that it was nothing less than a public scandal that the obstinacy of two men should be permitted any longer to stand in the way of a great social reform, for which the action of both Houses of Parliament and the expressed voice of the country, had shown that public opinion was fully ripe.

It was accordingly arranged that the Bill should be taken at a time to which the 12.30 rule (which alone gave scope for the action of these obstructionists) did not apply. On Friday, the 11th of August, before going into Committee on the Bill, Sir G. Campbell offered to withdraw his opposition provided Mr. Osborne Morgan would accept an amendment, which Sir G. Campbell added, "was not of his own devising, but was drawn and put into the Scotch Act of last year by the Select Committee which inquired into the subject." Sir George Campbell did not add, which is nevertheless the fact, that the clause in question did not succeed in finding a place in the Married Women's Property (Scotland) Act, 1881, and is no part of the law of Scotland at all."

When in Committee, Mr. Warton proposed an amendment, the effect of which, with its consequential amendments, would have been to deprive women already married of their share in the advantages of the Act. The amendment was negatived, and the Bill passed through Committee.

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